Thursday, January 17, 2008

Minori Dining and Sake Bar

Minori Dining and Sake Bar has been open at UE Square for a while now. The former owners of Hanabi set up Minori with a similar a la carte buffet concept for Japanese food. There have been a flurry of mixed reviews despite a positive press article. So I did not come here with high expectations, only curiosity as to how the place actually fares.

I had heard it can get really crowded but it was empty when I arrived today at lunchtime with my friend. As such, we didn't encounter any service problems or slowness that seemed to plague the restaurant in its earlier days. However, it did fill up considerably still past 12.30pm but service did not suffer too much. The waitresses (some seem to be from Myanmar) were quite patient and even took the effort to recommend popular dishes when we seemed stumped by the wide menu choices.

One of the chief reasons Singaporeans love a Japanese a la carte buffet is the unlimited orders of sashimi. At Minori, you get a choice of salmon, tuna, yellowtail, snapper, black king fish, octopus and cuttlefish. However, I think sashimi at Ikoi's is sliced much more generously, and tastes better too.

I will go through the rest of the food just very briefly. We ate a lot of dishes - really easy to do so as the portions served are very small. The potato salad was creamy but light-tasting, served on an interesting raised glass platter.

Handrolls here are not spectacular. Mainly because the dried seaweed sheets they used had a musty odour. Probably an inferior quality or type of seaweed used. And it wasn't crisp nor easy to bite through.

This is the SMALLEST ever tempura moriawase set I have ever seen. Two prawns and three thin slices of vegetable. I guess it's a small eater's single portion only. Average tasting, and the batter could be lighter.

There are two kinds of chawanmushi here, the kabocha (pumpkin) one just has the addition of a layer of pumpkin puree on top. The mixture is a really surprising attack of flavours on your palate - both sweet and savoury combining to jolt your senses. The egg custard is quite smooth. and has lots of nameko mushrooms at the bottom. Yum.

Understandably, they aren't the most generous with their sashimi servings. Don't expect the best of fish slicing skills here either. Some of the sashimi were still sinewy. But for the price, I don't think anyone will complain.

This is very similar to the tori karaage, just that it involves the breastbone cartilage. I just love cartilage. Is that really odd? I remember even my Japanese friend looking at me strange when I ordered this at Nanbantei in Tokyo some years back.

Minori serves free-flow green tea and water as part of the buffet. Alcoholic drinks and desserts (mostly ice cream) are available separately. If you don't want the buffet, you can opt for their set meals.

In summary, Minori's food is fairly competent across the board but is still very average. Much like a jack-of-all-trades but master of none. The variety is undoubtedly better than at most joints, but many of the dishes involve same ingredients done differently (as sushi, maki, handroll etc). Personally, in terms of all-you-can-eat places, I'd rather head to Ikoi or Sushi Kikuzawa for a more fulfilling experience.

15 comments

Went there last year. I am quite disppointed with the grilled stuffs, most of which are dry except for the pork belly. Chicken wing is dry and bland, leeks are dry too. Maybe I didn't order the right stuffs. Sushi's quality is bad, I thot it's was worse than sakae. =(

However, the fried food are pretty ok. I had the pumpkin croquette, chicken karrage. Can't rem much, but I won't go back for that price I paid. The only comfort is the free flow sashimi that I can order. lol

Hi, I am a Japanese Food Lover! Hence, I've always been looking out for excellent Japanese Restaurant... You can probably give Hoshi Restaurant at IMM and Honjin at Robinson Road a try... For me, these 2 restaurants serve pretty decent sashimi in their Buffet but pricing is pretty steep though ... ...

Who's talking about Chinese food? This entry is about Japanese food. Sorry, chiffonade, if you can't even tell the difference between the two, I don't know what kind of "Chinese food" you's been having! Touting your grand ignorance like this is just going to further diminish any tiny bit of remaining respect the world has for the 'great USA'.

hello!im looking for a nice and affordable sashimi buffet, with wide range of variety of food. prices ranging from $30-$40 if possible. saw some of your food reviews on ikoi restaurant and minori. wanna ask, which would be a better place for dining as it's my anniversary, heh. and btw, of cos, the buffet includes my favourite food like chawanmushi and salmon sashimi. cos i realized minori's menu inly include food like sashimi and sushis? would like to find something like sakae's menu for buffet. is ikoi the one? but it's very squeezy right? ): do reply! gladly appreciated and thanks a million in advance! :D

i think their foods quality are quite good and tasty... i think if you think their foods are bad. then you ordered wrong one. their pan fried dishes. deep fried dishes, and samshimis are very good. spider handroll is rock.....

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About Me

Catherine Ling is the founder of the award-winning blog Camemberu.com and has been covering food and travel in Asia since 2007. Her blog has led to opportunities writing for CNN Travel, NineMSN, Yahoo Makanation and Makansutra. She has appeared on various TV food programs, like Food Wars Asia, On The Red Dot, Ch8 Tuesday Report. Catherine also held a radio spot on Foodie Lunch Pick on 93.8LIVE from 2010-2014.